On their way!

Two bundles of plus-sized patterns are on their way to Dixie and Karen at long last.



I don't do snail mail well, I'm afraid. But to compensate for the wait, the patterns are wrapped in lovely gauzy knit reminiscent of 1970s nightmare nightwear but in fact harvested from the $2.50/pound bin at Michael Levine's loft.

Big Winners in the Plus-Sized Pyramid!

Congratulations to Karen in VA of Karen's Fiber Musings and Dixie of With Needle and Brush! You have won this tier of the Plus-Sized Pyramid of Patterns launched by Beverly aka BeaJay of On the Road to Sew Wear! Use the link on the right to send me your snail mail addresses and I'll get the patterns out to you asap!

Plus-Sized Pattern Pyramid Power!

Last month the Beautiful Beverley (aka Bea Jay) of On The Road To Sew Wear launched a Pattern Pyramid giveaway just like Karen's only Bigger and Better--this one's for Misses of Massive Magnificence! Funnygrrl of Falling Through Your Clothes and Lisa of Sew On And Sew On were Beverley's first two winners, and I am pleased to be the third! (The deadline for Lisa's giveaway seems to have passed, but Funnygrrl's goes on until March 3.)

Here is my haul:



Plus this one, which I'm keeping and making of the organic red cotton knit on which it is reclining:



And here are my contributions to the pyramid:

THE RULES (As copied - and slightly amended - from Did You Make That)
Anyone, anywhere can enter the giveaway by posting a comment below by midnight US Pacific Standard Time Sunday March 3 BUT you must have an active blog. (Reasons to become obvious.)
I will randomly select 2 winners.
I will post a random selection of 4 or 5 patterns to each winner. Each winner will pick one pattern to keep for themselves, then host their own giveaway. They will randomly select a winner, post the remaining patterns to that Person C. Person C will pick a pattern for themselves, host their own giveaway and post the remaining patterns to the winner, Person D. Person D will…
All patterns are in the plus size category - ie - if the pattern comes in 2 sizing groups, then it will be the larger category. Patterns to go up to at least go up to a size 20 (most go higher). Patterns listed as "all sizes" will include plus sizes.
If you wish to take more than one pattern you can replenish the stock with a pattern you no longer want - but please make sure it is in plus size range
You get the idea!


THE Plus-Sized SMALL PRINT
We are taking it on trust that all pattern pieces are there.
If you’re a winner, Beverley would love it if you could make a small contribution to The Brooke. This is a charity close to the heart of Catherine, who so generously provided the original patterns. These plus sized patterns have been contributed by Catherine, Beverley and me in the spirit of the generosity of the sewing community
Please engage in a timely fashion, launching your own giveaways soon after receiving a parcel
You must be be happy to post patterns worldwide.

Thank you Beverley, and let the comments commence!

I Won! But So Can You!

Unbelievably, I won the 5 Bunka Book giveaway on Fashion Incubator! Attentive readers may notice that I just went to great efforts to off-load a batch of books on my birthday, so this could be seen as an exercise in re-cluttering. But I prefer to think about all the empty space on my shelves just waiting for new books!

The publisher, Laurence King, is generously offering a 35% discount on all titles on its website through the end of November, so all is not lost. You may even get free shipping, for sure in the UK and maybe everywhere else!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving (in the US) and a wonderful week everywhere!

Fabulous Book Giveaway at Fashion Incubator!

Kathleen Fasanella at Fashion Incubator is hosting a giveaway, sponsored by Laurence King Publishing, in which ONE lucky winner will win FIVE great books: Tomoko Nakamichi's Pattern Magic, Pattern Magic 2 and Pattern Magic: Stretch Fabrics, and Hisako Sato's Drape Drape and Drape Drape 2. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment at Fashion Incubator, formatted in Haiku. So,

Post your entry now
At Fashion Incubator.
Maybe win these books!

Of course, I'm planning to win the books, so you needn't bother to enter, but do check out this exceptionally informative and interesting blog about apparel manufacturing. Among the many Fashion Incubator delights are the frequent garment construction puzzle posts, including one being worked out now on the blog. Kathleen Fasanella is the author of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing, available through her website.

Meanwhile, on the home front, I finished my Vogue 8618 and wore it to work today. Not too shabby!

So, Promaballoona and Stuff

I live in Los Angeles. So I'm one of the Lucky Ones who can toddle off to Promaballoona in analog time and space tomorrow at SewLA. Which, by the way, is a great shop, and even better in its new location where instead of zero parking spaces it has at least 2! I was there just the other day and bought myself a copy of Sewaholic's Renfrew pattern, which I made up today into a wholly satisfactory tee.



But what I should have been making was a dress for Promaballoona if, in fact (or in digital reality), I'm going. I'm awfully awesomely old for a prom but I suppose I could chaperone. Well, except for the being responsible and staying sober part.

Here is a photo of me last time I went to a prom, in 1968.



I kid you not. It was a yellow A-line dress with a neon orange net overlay. Or a sheer neon orange dress over a yellow petticoat. My date, my steady but very frustrated boyfriend at the time, wore a magenta tux. On which I pinned an orange boutonniere. Did I mention it was 1968?

So, now, 44 years later, whatever shall I wear? At first I thought I'd let Fate or, more accurately, FabricMart decide. I fell so hard for FM's 35% off sale (ending tomorrow 8/5) that I qualified for a free mystery bundle. You know how FabricMart tries to divine your style from what you order and match it with your mystery bundle, right? Right? Not.* Here's what I ordered:



And here is what was in my mystery bundle:



But totally prom material, am I right?

On the other hand, I did spend Tuesday of this past week shopping with my giveaway winner Amity and fellow seamster Nhi.



Where I scored $25.00 worth of god-knows-what at $2.50/pound at Michael Levine's Loft.

Surely some of this stuff is crying to be made into a prom dress, right?

Maybe, maybe not. Stay tuned.

*Okay, the orange and yellow seem to have some kinship with the sky blue. But the orange and yellow are supplex for somewhat-high-viz cycling wear, for which the shiny sky blue is not suited.

Everyone's A Winner!

I know no one can wait to hear a progress report on my birthday book giveaway, so here it is: In Third Place is Jane of Lempo Bee! Jane purports to be a creative and very productive seamster in Australia with three totally adorable tousle-haired boy children. In fact, Jane's kids are so beautiful, and so reliably delighted with her craft and sewing output, that I am quite sure she has invented her whole life (created it out of whole cloth, as it were) and is really a hairy old man in Arkansas or somewhere. Nevertheless, I will play along and send Claire Schaeffer's Couture Sewing Techniques to the address "Jane" made up in South Australia. Congratulations, "Jane"!

Jane's entry was scientifically selected by me reaching into the bag and pulling out the first scrap of paper I found. BO-RING. So to select Winner Number 4 I decided to use whatever number the winner of the Olympic Women's Road Cycling event was wearing this morning in London. Now, this was kind of risky, because there were over 60 entrants in the road cycling event, while only 8 lovely women are competing for my books. Luck was with me, however, and with Marianne Vos of The Netherlands, who won the race wearing number 8. Commenter number 8 was and still is The Perfect Nose! The Perfect Nose is an enchanting, energetic and imaginative seamster whose work was already adorable enough before she splashed paint all over a dress and made total magic this week. Or last week. Or whatever month it is in the Antipodes, where TPN sews and blogs. The Perfect Nose, conveniently, wants me to send her Leather Fashion Design, and plans to make leather jackets for her entire biker gang. I might have that wrong, but I think that's what she said.

I am totally loving running this giveaway, although the logistics have turned out to be a little complicated. It turns out it is cheaper to buy Couture Sewing Techniques from Amazon and have Amazon ship it to "Jane" than to send her my copy, so that's what I am doing. So that leaves 6 books for 7 commenters, which means the point of all this scientific selection is to pick a LOSER, not a winner. Well, that sucks. So I'll figure out something to send to the loser last winner and yes, that means, except for you losers who didn't enter, EVERYONE'S A WINNER!

More Winning, and Some Thoughts About Underwear

William the cat has completely lost interest in naturally selecting winners for my sewing book giveaway so I've had to devise another method. Tradition has it that law professors grade final exams by throwing them down the stairs, awarding the top grade to the one that travels the farthest, etc. (This belief persists because students are otherwise unable to figure out why they got the grade they got and the exams are seldom returned with useful comments.) Let me make clear that I have never graded exams by this method, but it seemed like it might work for picking giveaway winners so I gave it a try. Here are the 7 remaining entries tossed down my front steps. (It's the San Fernando Valley so there aren't a lot of stairs around.)


And the A+ goes to:


Carole Mellin! Who neither chose a book nor left an email address or link, but wisely and wittily blogs at Mia's Sewing Room.

Meanwhile, Amity and I are going to meet on Tuesday July 31 at Michael Levine's Loft (where, I confess, I have never ventured) so I can deliver her grand prize in person and we can shop and talk and eat. We are meeting at 10:30 a.m. so any reader in Los Angeles is welcome to show up and join us. Let me know you are coming and we'll even wait for you.

Don't get any ideas, Carole. I'm not delivering your prize in person to Atlanta (right?), much as I might like to.

And now for something completely different: underwear. I admit it. I get chub rub when I wear a dress. The solution to chub rub (if you aren't wearing slacks, leggings or tights) is underwear extending down one's thighs. Unless one is willing to lose 50 or 60 pounds which, frankly, I'm not and it's rude of you to even mention it. There are lots of ladies' undergarments for sale that extend down the wearer's thighs, but they are almost all what is euphemistically called "shapewear". As if anyone substantial enough to want a lining between her legs is the wrong shape and wants--or, at least, should want--to be squeezed into a smaller, smoother one. The only alternatives I can find are bicycle shorts and pettipants. Pettipants seem to come in two fabrics: nylon and cotton. If I'm going to wear nylon in hot weather I might as well wrap my legs in plastic and leave puddles of sweat wherever I sit, while many dress fabrics cling to cotton.

I have no problem with anyone who wants to wear shapewear. Barbara of Sewing on the Edge wrote a thoughtful (all Barbara's posts are thoughtful) post on Spanx and I agree with pretty much everything she said. (Barbara is too tasteful to mention chub rub, which she probably doesn't have anyway.) I wear shapewear when I want to (almost never) but I don't want to feel like I owe it to anyone who has to look at me and I resent it being the only option for chub rub. Anyway I'd need shapewear to extend from my neck to below my knees or there would be a roll of fat wherever it ended.

This one might do, but does it come in my size? And can I get it with 3/4 length sleeves?


So when FabricMart offered silk cotton batiste for a good price (you know FabricMart is selling everything on the site for 35% off don't you? That sale might even still be going on if this post ever ends) I made myself some silk/cotton pettipants. Well, pajama bottoms, really.

I started with the Butterick 6837 pajama pattern because they are almost the only pants I've ever made, and reduced the width a lot. Then I cut off the elastic waistband I had just put on badly and tried another, wider one. That had the effect of raising the crotch which had been too low but is now too high, I think. Not comfortable. But the fabric is better than nylon or cotton knit so it's a start. I may try Evange's bloomer tutorial on YouTube next, but I am open to desperate for other suggestions. I just have this possibly small time between Kotex and Depends to wear something comfortable and I'd like to take advantage of it.

How Science Selects A Giveaway Winner!

I've seen lots of blog giveaway winner announcements and most of them use some little random number generator that I can't find. I found it once before but I didn't know how to post its results on my blog. (As I age and my brain cells slough off I have to reserve the ones remaining for important tasks like rotating darts and finding my eyeglasses, right?) Anyway, that's dull. So to rank the winners of my Spectacular Second Blogiversary-Hundredth Post-Awful Birthday Book Giveaway I turned to natural selection. I wrote the name of each entrant on a piece of cardboard, folded them up, and put them on the sewing dining room table.



Then I waited a half a second. Employing his uncanny senses and unerring instincts, William the cat came from wherever the heck he was and knew exactly what I needed.



In a flash, he had selected the winning entry and pushed it onto the floor. It was a struggle, but I retrieved it before it went under the china cabinet, and the winner is ...



Amity Originals! Amity reveals in her comment that she is a lawyer in Los Angeles (maybe William wants me to save money on postage and spend it on treats?). A glance at her blog reveals that she is also a skilled seamster and the Pattern Review member known as Spaiyq. Amity expressed a preference for The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff, so as soon as she emails me to confirm that choice or make a different one I'll send it off (or maybe deliver it in person?) and move on to Winner Number Two!

Of Books, Dragons and Birthday Giveaways

As you no doubt remember I recently announced the end of the worldmy second blogiversary and 100th post. Well, things have only gotten more exciting around here: I have a Very Special Awful Awesome Birthday coming up Quite Soon. I was born in 1952, the last year of the Truman Administration and a Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese Zodiac. Here is my favorite Dragon, Smaug from The Hobbit, illustrated by the author J.R.R.Tolkien.



Oddly enough, that's a pretty accurate depiction of Casa KC, so as you can see it is high time for a Giveaway.
Since taking up sewing again I have acquired (new) a number of lovely and highly recommended sewing books. Some I use quite a bit, but some just lie around the cave looking pretty. So it is time to give some of the latter away, one for each decade of my life so far, and here they are:

Pattern Magic (in English) by Tomoko Nakamichi;Shirtmaking by David Coffin;Leather Fashion Design by Francesca Sterlacci;The Complete Serger Handbook by Chris James;Couture Sewing Techniques by Claire Schaeffer;
and
The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff.

If you would like any of these books, please leave a comment here. Tell me how to reach you by linking to your blog or leaving or sending me your email address. If you'd like a second chance to win, mention my giveaway on your blog and then link to that post in a comment here. The giveaway closes July 20, 2012 at midnight Pacific Time (UTC-7). I'll draw winners at random and offer each a choice of the remaining books until they are gone. I'll ship anywhere on this planet. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. Don't try this at home.

How can it be November already?

I confess, I've been caught in a procrastinator's vicious circle: months ago Tors of Girl Meets Wolf won my blogiversary giveaway, a set of vintage Singer Sewing Machine feet, and it took me forever to get around to mailing them to her. Bad me. And whenever I thought about posting to my blog I thought, "But first, you have to send those feet!" And so it goes. But now I've finally sent them off across the continent and then the Pond, along with a selection of goodies to assuage my guilt, so (in my weird little moral economy) I can post again! Lucky you.

Here's what I finished today.


It is Vogue 8525, made from some shiny, shreddy, see-through synthetic knit which is real pretty to look at but a bear to sew on. I bought the pattern a long time ago and probably wouldn't buy it if I were just seeing it now, having finally learned that shapeless clothing on a shapeless body does not produce a shapely silhouette. But look at those slash pockets! I've never made non-patch pockets, so go me! And although the FO looks like a sack, I am proud to say that it looks just like the photo on the pattern envelope, which also looks like a sack. Which of course raises (but, if you please, does not beg) the question of why I bought it.

We Have A Winner!

I know all three contestants have been on pins and needles (how appropriate, right?) to see who would win my vintage Singer attachment giveaway. Well, the waiting is over, the random number generator came up with number 2 so the winner is Tors, of Girl Meets Wolf! Hooray! This is only fair, and restores balance to the universe, because I won a contest on Torie's blog (when it was Welsh Pixie) and have been using the bright handmade bag I won to hold my knitting (and unknitting and reknitting ...) lately. But I didn't cheat, I really did use the random number generator, although I'm too techno-lame to publish the proof here.

Now, I think vintage Singer attachments are the greatest thing since sliced bread, but maybe the thin turnout for my giveaway indicates they are an acquired taste? I'll try to come up with something of more general appeal for my 100th post. After I come up with 29 more posts, of course.

Can't have a post without pictures, so here's my grandmother:

and my generation of her descendants from our recently concluded family reunion.

An Update, A Miracle and a Give-Away

Hi all!
The Update: Although I located her belt and oiled her treadle, I decided to put Virginia's head up on a pedestal (hmm, that does not sound right) in my totally '70s family room,

and to move Elizabeth's head to Virginia's cabinet. Here's my new little corner of the family room (complete with cat post and, of course, cat).

The Miracle: Well, it seems like a miracle to me, anyway. As long as I was fiddling with my old machines I decided to try out some of the wonderful attachment feet that go along with them. Elizabeth came without feet, apart from the basic presser foot, so I bought a box for her on ebay. The ruffler is the most elaborate little gadget I've ever seen, but the most mysterious little critter in the box was this one:

Fortunately, it has a part number on it, and a little googling took me to Susan's lovely blog Spare Time (for Sewing), where in 2010 she demonstrated the Multi-Slotted Binder. So I bumbled around with it for a bit, shoved some scraps of fabric through it, and did this!

Amazing. Susan, by the way, shows how to do even more amazing things with this attachment here and here.
The Give-Away: Although I'm still short of 100 posts, and well short of 100 followers, I've now had this blog going for a year and a day. So that makes it time for a give-away, right? It so happens that I have not one but two boxes of attachments for vintage low-shank sewing machines (not counting the antique puzzle box) because in my inexpert ebaying I "won" two auctions.

My gain, your um, gain, too. If you would like this lovely box of mechanical marvels, leave a comment congratulating me on my blogiversary and I'll pick somebody at random to send it to. To win you must live somewhere on planet Earth and tell me some way to get in touch with you. Okay? Good.

D'oh! I guess I have to say when the deadline for entering my fabulous give-away is. Let's say June 30, midnight PDT--when the last day of June drags her last tattered remnants into the Pacific Ocean with nothing but Hawaii between her and the day after tomorrow. I think.

Shake a Leg?

Yay! A few weeks ago I won Welsh Pixie's 100th-post giveaway. Today, this auspicious package arrived in the mail:


I opened it to find:


Yes, that is a single leg on top:


Beneath that is a very pretty and useful bag (handmade, Toria? And the leg, too?)


And two very nice patterns:


I am a very happy camper! Thank you Toria!

I'm A Winner!

Yay me! I entered Toria's e-Bay Queen/100th post giveaway over at her delightful Welsh Pixie a week or two ago and I won! Toria posted pictures of fabulous items (be sure to check out the yellow shoes!) she had won on eBay and asked us to guess what she paid. I figured I might have a shot at winning in a random drawing if everyone guessed wrong, and anyway I like typing this: £. But I won, as we lawyers say, "on the merits"--I correctly guessed the price of appraised an unknown length of lovely lace. Thanks, Toria!

So on the theory that Toria's readers might be checking me out today, here are some pictures to look at. First, a recognizable piece of a Negroni shirt just to show I really am working on the MPB Sew-along, really! Although it looks like I'm making my muslin from a paper bag, it's actually a khaki-colored bed sheet. In this picture it's lying on an olive/gold/rust moleskin I bought on sale from FabricMart that, if all goes as planned, you'll be seeing a LOT of during Me-Made-March '11.



Second, this is a billboard I pass every day on the way into my office. The clothing on offer at this Korean Italian tailor's establishment is very conservative and, well, establishment, but I love the jolly androgeny of the models sporting these suits. When its lease expires this shop will close so that the school where I work can expand and open a dormitory. That will be great for us, but I'll miss these guys. Or gals.